As road traffic has continued to increase at rates greater than increases in road capacity, the effects of increasing traffic congestion have had growing deleterious effects on business and government operations and on personal well-being. Accordingly, efforts have been made to combat the increasing traffic congestion in various ways, such as by obtaining and providing information about current traffic conditions to individuals and organizations. One source for obtaining information about current traffic conditions in some larger metropolitan areas is networks of traffic sensors capable of measuring traffic flow for various roads in the area (e.g., via sensors embedded in the road pavement), and such current traffic condition information may be provided to interested parties in various ways (e.g., via frequent radio broadcasts, an Internet Web site that displays a map of a geographical area with color-coded information about current traffic congestion on some major roads in the geographical area, information sent to cellular telephones and other portable consumer devices, etc.).
However, while such current traffic information provides some benefits in particular situations, the lack of accurate information about comparative traffic conditions creates a number of problems. In particular, knowledge about comparative traffic conditions, such as when traffic conditions are currently or expected to become unusual or otherwise anomalous, would allow users to improve their travel, such as to initiate travel when current or expected future traffic conditions are better than typical, or to alter travel plans when current or expected future traffic conditions are worse than usual.
Accordingly, it would be beneficial to provide improved techniques for automatically detecting anomalous road traffic conditions for use in facilitating travel on roads of interest, as well as to provide additional related capabilities.